Bedtime story

Last night I got to solo dinner and bedtime. What to do, what to do? I don't remember it all very clearly, but it went something like this: Girl ate fishsticks and handed me her broccoli, while Boy drew and didn't eat. Then they both ran around for a while as I tried to think of what to do. Eventually I got out the Megablocks and helped Girl build some weird postmodern structure, while Boy made his robot dinosaur walk repeatedly off the kitchen chair.

Girl and I put together a track for the little electric car, at which point Boy came over and snagged it from her, insisting that it was Too Special! to share.

While looking for the other little electric car, I found Boy's flashlight, then grabbed a couple more flashlights, turned out all the lights, and - jackpot! Exploring the house with flashlights killed about 45 minutes, then it was bedtime, at which point Boy discovered that he was hungry. This is business as usual, so I gave him his fishsticks again, and a glass of milk...

Rather than put Girl in her crib, I decided to let them hear a story together, in Boy's bunkbed - I tried to read "Hercules" (the lame Disney storybook version) but they were playing a hilarious game involving bubble wrap and a low ceiling on which Girl kept bumping her head, so I ended up putting away the book and telling a version of "Runaway Bunny" by heart. It went something like this:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, "I am running away."

"If you run away," said his mother, "I will send a seven-headed Hydra with razor-sharp teeth to kill you and bring you back. For you are my little bunny."

"If you send a Hydra to kill me," said the little bunny, "I will cut off its heads and sear them with a torch so they can't grow back."

"If you kill the Hydra," said his mother, "I will send a fierce lion to snap you in half with its jaws. For you are my little bunny."

... and so on. It was all about meeting challenges successfully. Jeopardy and recovery. Very edifying for young minds.